Ryan Giammo, of Punta Gorda, FL, will begin his second semester at Berklee in the fall. His principal instrument is guitar and he is studying for a degree in music education. Ryan works in the Office of Summer Programs as a student employee.

The students poured into recital hall 1A at the 1140 Boylston Street building to begin their first class in the Business of Music summer program.  Jackie Indrisano, the booking agent and venue manager of Café 939’s Red Room, started it all off with her presentation “Taking It To The Streets.” She expressed a very realistic and straightforward perspective on the music industry to the students. She made a resounding statement, “Music creates the whole vibe of the venue. It’s not really a person but a personality.” This rings true; venue managers have to take their venue’s personality into consideration when looking for bands to book. Musicians provide the entertainment, while the business people [the managers, booking agents, PR reps, etc.] use their skills to expose musicians to the mainstream. It is a mutually beneficial relationship, and she went in depth regarding how each can work with the other to boost each other higher up on the industry ladder. 

Ms. Indrisano offered a great deal of advice on how musicians can get into the business side of things. As an artist, you should know who you are, and be able to articulate it without name-dropping 20 different styles or band names. She went into further detail and discussed how to build a “sales kit” [a musician’s resume], how to go from being a band to a brand, and how to set your image to fit your audience. All of these details are fairly simple for a band to pay attention to, but very few actually think to do it!

All in all, the presentation was a great start to the Music Business program of 2012; a laid back but informative opening act for the headliners to follow.

mkowalski
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